


Shadow of a Legend

by NikiBogwater



Series: Heroes About the House [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Dad!Link, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-23 17:50:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21085394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikiBogwater/pseuds/NikiBogwater
Summary: It was one thing to know your parents were heroes, but another thing entirely to learn that they were legends.





	Shadow of a Legend

**Author's Note:**

> I spent. SO. LONG. On this one. And I'm not even sure if I like it very much. I also couldn't find a good place to list the children's ages in this piece, so:
> 
> Tiran is 12
> 
> Amari is 10
> 
> Niva is 5
> 
> Hope you all enjoy. :)

There are no walls that boredom cannot penetrate eventually. Even deep within the confines of Hyrule Castle, the dread monster of mirthlessness could find its way into the hearts of the most well-entertained of children, even of princes and princesses. And today, the Royal children were feeling the claws of disinterest sinking deep into their souls. Mother had a meeting with the Council to discuss a new treaty, Father had to oversee the examination of a new squire, and lessons had been canceled that day due to Master Getsu’s returning migraine. This left the three children with nothing to do and no one to keep them company. Worse still, all three of them seemed to have been afflicted with an intense bout of dissatisfaction at the same time, so that none of their usual activities held any appeal to them that day. 

Amari was in the garden, swinging her wooden halberd with little enthusiasm, while Tiran sprawled on the grass nearby. Niva was looking contemplatively from one of her siblings to the other, waiting for someone to suggest an activity. Tiran stared up at the jewel-bright sky, wincing at the sound of Amari’s weapon whistling sharply through the air. 

“You’ve run that drill fifteen times today,” he complained, throwing an arm across his face to block out the sunlight. “Can’t you think of anything else to do?”

“No,” Amari answered bluntly, jabbing at an invisible foe with the blunt end of her pole. “But at least I’m doing something, and not lying around like an overfed Hinox.” 

“There’s nothing to do,” Tiran whined. 

“You could train,” Amari pointed out, swinging her halberd over his head. “For once,” she added sharply. 

“I don’t need to,” he informed her, waving her away and looking back up at the sky. “I already know all the forms.” 

“Father says knowing is not the same as doing,” the princess reminded him, stepping back and swinging her staff in the opposite direction. 

“Lay off, Mari, I could do this week’s set in my sleep. Doing it again would be just as bad as doing nothing.” Amari slid back into a neutral stance and looked at him with critical green eyes. 

“How do you expect to get any good at swordplay if you never practice?” 

“I practice plenty!” Tiran said hotly, glaring up at her. “You and Father expect way more than what’s necessary. Y’know, most people have lives to live beyond their training.” 

“Seems to me you’re living very little at the moment,” his sister quipped dryly. 

“Oh, because swinging a pole around is _so_ meaningful,” he retorted. 

“I’m practicing to protect people. Are you saying that the lives of our subjects are meaningless?” she shot back coldly. “You know, it’s our responsibility to face danger when--”

“_Our_ responsibility?” Tiran scoffed. “_Mine,_ maybe. _I’m_ the one who’s going to be king, so you can stop trying to elbow in and--”

“Where’s Father?” Niva piped up suddenly. She had been watching her siblings intently for the past few minutes, and felt the atmosphere heating up for a real fight. 

“He’s examining a new squire, Niva, remember?” Amari supplied the answer a little grumpily, giving her halberd a forceful swing. 

“When will he be finished?” Niva persisted, glancing between the two children nervously. 

“Later,” her sister snapped. “Why don’t you go to the library while you wait?” 

“I ran out of books to read. Anyways, I need to ask him something. I think it’s important.” 

“You think every question is important,” Tiran pointed out, plucking a blade of grass and twisting it between his fingers. “What is it this time?” 

“Mother says every question _is_ important,” Niva said with a huff. “I found a picture of a sword in a book, and it looks just like the one Father has in his and Mother’s room. I want to know how he got it.” 

“Father’s sword was in a book?” Amari asked, forgetting her halberd for a moment. “Which book?” 

“I don’t remember what it was called. Parts of it were in Ancient Hylian, so I couldn’t read all of it. It was about a hero and a princess who fought a monster.” 

“You just described most of the books in the library,” Tiran deadpanned. “Hyrule’s history is full of princesses and heroes and monsters.”

“Mother and Father fought a monster once,” Amari added. “Mother’s told you that story plenty of times.” 

“But she never said anything about a sword,” Niva said. “The book said the hero needed the sword to fight the monster.” 

“It is a little weird...” Tiran observed, sitting up and discarding his crumpled blade of grass. “I’ve seen Father’s sword loads of times, but he never talks about it, except to tell me to never, ever touch it, no matter what.” 

“He said the same thing to me,” Amari said, resting the end of her staff against the ground. “I thought it was a little strange. He lets me hold all of his other weapons, even Champion Mipha’s trident, and Mother says that’s one of his most prized possessions. Why wouldn’t he want us to know about his sword?” 

“Maybe it’s not the same sword, though,” Tiran suggested. “Niva, are you _sure_ the picture was exactly the same as Father’s sword?” 

“Pretty sure,” Niva answered with a hesitant nod. “I can go get it if you want to check.”

“Or-r-r...” Tiran began slowly. “We could take a look at the real thing. Father doesn’t take it to examinations, so it’s probably in his room.” 

“Tiran, we’re not supposed to touch it!” Amari exclaimed, horrified by the idea. 

“I didn’t say I was going to touch it! But....well, now I’m curious. Why would Father’s sword be in a book? You know he wouldn’t answer if we asked. He won’t talk about it.” 

“Then we could ask Mother,” Amari argued. “She always gives us answers.” 

“But Mother’s in the councilroom, and she’s going to be there all day. Besides, she always tells us that the best answers are the ones you find for yourself.”

“I’m pretty sure she wasn’t talking about this when she said that.” 

“Come on, Mari! I’m so bored, and now we finally have something to do! What if Father’s sword is actually really important? Shouldn’t future kings and princesses know about really important things like that? Especially about swords?” Tiran knew how to wear his sister down. When it came to weapons, she was insatiably curious, and not even her respect for their father could outweigh her desire to learn more about them. “Mother and Father let us in their room all the time,” he added, recognizing the signs of her caving by the conflicted look on her face. “They won’t mind if we just go in for a quick peek and see if we can find anything.” 

“...We can look,” Amari conceded at last. “But I’m only coming to make sure you don’t touch it!” 

“Fine, then. Just looking. Niva, go get your book and meet us at Mother and Father’s chambers.”  
*****  
Going to their parents’ room had never felt quite like this before. They knew they were allowed there, yet at the same time, they slipped through the door as though they were afraid of being caught. Amari’s posture screamed tension, and Tiran’s eyes nervously darted across the room before he took a tentative step inside. Niva came enthusiastically striding in after them, still too young to understand the gravity of the situation, a thick book clutched in her small arms. 

“There it is,” she said happily, pointing to the wall above their mother’s writing desk. Father’s sword rested on a pair of hooks driven into the wall, its pommel gleaming in the daylight coming from the window near it. The elaborate embroidery on the sheath seemed almost iridescent, and the older children were struck with a sense of awe as they examined it. Niva opened her book and thumbed through it. “And it’s in here, too,” she said, holding the tome up to her siblings. Sure enough, there was an illustration of the same sword that hung on the wall, elaborately detailed, right down to the highlight in the jewel at the center of the crosspiece.

“It could still be different,” Tiran noted, glancing between the picture and the sword. “The handles are the same, but the blade might not be.” 

“Why would the blade be different?” Niva asked. 

“Sometimes blacksmiths use the same handle design for different swords.” He clambered onto the chair by the desk, reached up, and carefully lifted the sheathed blade off of its rack. 

“_Tiran!_” Amari hissed, afraid they might be heard. “You’re not supposed to touch it!” 

“I’m just going to unsheath it for a minute to check the blade. I’ll put it back right away.” He got off the chair and grasped the sheath in one hand, while his other gingerly closed around the hilt of the weapon. 

The moment his fingers gripped the sword, he felt a jolt in his stomach, and had to fight the sudden urge to vomit. It felt like his soul was being dragged out of his chest, slowly and painfully, taking his breath with it. He wanted to let go, but his fingers had locked around the hilt in a white-knuckled grip, and in his suffocating terror, he couldn’t get them to open. Amari screamed as his knees buckled underneath him. The room became a blur of colored light and a strange wind roared in his ears. He distantly felt his head hit the floor as blackness filled his vision, and then a warm pressure closed over his stiff fingers.  
*****  
“Tiran...”

The young prince groaned, shifting his pounding head to the side, trying to shake the voice out of his ears. There was something warm beneath his head, and he wanted nothing more than to burrow into it and sleep for a week.

“Tiran, wake up.” 

The voice persisted, so with great difficulty, he forced his heavy eyelids open. He found himself staring up into eyes that mirrored his own, the exact same shade of sapphire blue, framed by messy locks of wheat-colored hair. Tiran swallowed. 

_Crud._

“Can you hear me?” Father asked, his quiet voice bouncing around in Tiran’s aching head like the echo of a thunderclap.

“Y-yeah,” he mumbled hoarsely. He blinked rapidly as he took in his surroundings. He was still in the bedroom, with Amari and Niva kneeling beside him. The warm thing underneath him was Father’s hand, carefully cradling his head in his open palm. Father let out a short breath of relief and looked up at the others.

“Alright,” he said quietly, using his “Captain of the Guard” voice. “What happened?” Amari stared fixedly at the floor, shame blazing in her bright green eyes. Niva glanced nervously between her and Tiran, waiting for one of them to speak up. When neither offered to, she took a shaky breath and addressed their Father in a small voice. 

“It was my fault. I was reading this book...” She gestured to the discarded tome behind her, which had fallen to the floor still open to the page in question. “...and I recognized your sword. I told Tiran and Mari about it, and Tiran wanted to check to see if they were the same.”

“It wasn’t your fault...” Tiran groaned, lifting a hand to his smarting head. “I’m the idiot who touched the thing.” 

“And I’m the idiot who let you,” Amari spat, her fists clenching on top of her lap. “I should’ve tried harder to stop you.” 

“When you say you touched it,” Father questioned Tiran. “did you actually grasp the hilt?” 

“Yeah. I was just going to pull it out of the sheath to look at it, but when I touched it, it....grabbed me, somehow, and started....started pulling at me, like it was sucking the air out of my lungs, and I couldn’t let go. I think I fell....I don’t really remember...”

“He fainted, and Mari ran out to find you,” Niva supplied. “She told me not to touch the sword, but when she left I heard a voice telling me to take it away from him, so I did.” She pointed to the sword, which was now lying next to her. Father’s gaze drifted from her to the weapon, then back to her. 

“You heard a voice?” he asked. Niva nodded shyly. “Did you recognize it?” The small princess wrung her hands thoughtfully for a moment. 

“Sort of,” she answered at length. “It felt like I had heard it before, but I couldn’t remember when, or who it was.” 

“And when you took the sword,” Father continued, his face tightening with something like distress. “Did you touch the hilt?” Niva nodded again. “What happened then?” 

“Nothing,” she said. “I had to pull Tiran’s hand off....He was holding it really tight. But I got it away from him and put it down, and I haven’t touched it since then, I promise!” She looked ready to cry. For some reason, Father’s questions were scaring her. 

“Alright, easy,” he soothed quickly. “I just wanted to know exactly what happened.” He looked down at Tiran, his face blank again. “So, now you know why I told you not to touch it,” he said, his voice hard. Tiran winced. 

“In my defense, if I’d known it was going to do _that,_ I never would’ve done it.” 

“You don’t have any defense. I told you to stay away from it. That should’ve been the end of it.” 

“I know...” Tiran huffed, letting his tired eyes close to hide the tears welling up there. His heart plummeted at the sound of the disappointment in Father’s voice. The knowledge that he had let him down was far worse than any punishment his parents would give him. 

The hand holding his head shifted, and he felt a pair of lips brush across his forehead. 

“I’m really glad you’re alright,” he heard Father whisper, as if to himself.

The tears gathering behind Tiran's eyelids burned hotter than ever.  
*****  
Tiran lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling above his bed. Mother had forbidden him from leaving his room for the rest of the day, partly as a form of punishment, but also as a precaution to keep him from overexerting himself as he recovered. Really, once his ears stopped ringing, he was perfectly fine, but the Queen was immovable, and it wasn’t as though he could ask Father to plead his case for him. Once more finding himself in the clutches of boredom, he let his mind drift listlessly from one thought to the next, pondering the events of that afternoon. 

It was one thing to know your parents were heroes, but another thing entirely to learn that they were legends. Tiran had heard the story of Ganon’s defeat ever since he was born. He never thought much of it, however. To him, Mother and Father had always been heroes, battling ferocious monsters or no. Now it was different. They had told him the whole story. Father wasn’t just a talented knight, he was the hero chosen by fate. Mother wasn’t just a gifted leader, she was the goddess incarnate, and it didn’t take a genius to work out that his youngest sister was as well. 

So where did that leave him? The Master Sword had rejected him, even though he was Link’s son. His father was disappointed in him, and his mother had practically imprisoned him. Granted, it was only for the night, but it still stung his pride. Would they have still punished him if the Sword had accepted him? Father would have considered him touching the blade insubordination no matter what the outcome was, but it was all too easy to believe that he wouldn’t have been half as disappointed as he was now if it had turned out Tiran was the next Chosen Hero. 

There was a light tap on the door, drawing him from his thoughts. Link stepped in without waiting for a reply, closing the door behind him with a sharp click that made Tiran’s stomach twist. The Prince Consort regarded his son silently for a moment, arms crossed and face pensive. Tiran felt like a caged monkey being ogled at by a creature far more intelligent than he. He sat up out of respect, but kept his eyes on the floor. Finally, Link breathed a quiet sigh, loosened up, grabbed a nearby chair, and sat down by the bed. Tiran felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. One-on-one confrontations with his father had always been a bit awkward, but now that he knew exactly what Link was, they were downright terrifying. 

“How are you feeling?” Link asked quietly. 

“Fine,” Tiran grunted, eyes wandering around the room looking for something to fix on that wasn’t the hero’s face. 

“Has the headache passed yet?” Tiran couldn’t stop himself from looking up at his father. 

“How did you know I had a headache? I didn’t say anything about it.” 

“The Sword rejected me too, once,” Link said in a rather clipped voice. “Left me with a splitting head for hours afterwards.” Tiran said nothing for a long while, processing this unexpected piece of information. 

“But...it serves you now?”

“Right. But I had to become worthy of it first,” Link explained haltingly. “I remember how I felt when it first cast me away. Like I was the biggest failure in all of Hyrule. Mother didn’t tell you that part, but I thought you should know.” 

“Oh,” Tiran muttered awkwardly, his eyes going back to roaming about.

“I don’t want this to make you give up,” the hero continued, bringing a hand up to run through his hair nervously. Link had never been good at speeches, especially the motivational kind, and most especially when it came to his son. “The reason we never told you about it was because we didn’t want you to feel like you had to live up to a legend. But now that you know the legend, I guess you’re feeling pretty pathetic right now?” 

“N-no,” Tiran insisted in a weak voice. “I told you, I’m fine.”

“Ah. Forgive me for thinking that, then,” Link replied. “But just in case you were, I wanted to tell you that heroism is something you earn with years of dedication and training. Just because you’re not worthy of the sword now doesn’t mean that you won’t ever be. Even if the sword never chooses you, you should never stop doing your best. And...” He faltered, glancing nervously to the side. “...and Mother and I will always be here for you, Chosen Hero or not.” 

“Okay. Thanks,” Tiran mumbled, bringing his knees up to his chest and resting his elbows across them. Link regarded his son for another moment, chewing his lip. In spite of his best efforts, Tiran remained something of a mystery to him. Try as he might, at the end of the day, Zelda was the only one who really understood the young prince. Link heaved a sigh and stood, clasping Tiran’s shoulder by way of saying farewell. He left without speaking another word.

Tiran flopped back onto the bed and resumed staring at the ceiling. _Do your best._ That’s all Father ever seemed to say to him. But even his best wasn’t good enough for the Sword. It wasn’t good enough for Father. And after the little stunt he’d pulled today, he wasn’t sure if it ever would be. 

“Y’know, I’m real good at screwing things up,” he mumbled to the ceiling. “It’s just too bad I’m not good at the things that matter.”  
*****  
Out in the hallway, the Chosen Hero leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh, his eyes wandering up to the ceiling above. Zelda met him there on her way to check on their son. 

“Is everything alright?” she asked, laying a hand on his arm. 

“You know, I’m real good at being a hero,” Link told her hesitantly. “It’s just too bad I’m not good at the things that matter.”


End file.
